A to Z Challenge: O is for ONLY

For the A-to-Z April Blogging Challenge, I’m writing a story, aiming for 1000 words a day (every day except Sundays). Continuing today with the next part of the story about the character Codie Snow.

If you’re new to this series of posts, you might want to start here:

• A is for ACCEPTING the Challenge
• C is for CODIE

NOTE: Sorry to disappoint you all. No sex scene on my blog. I promise it will get written before the final version, though. 🙂 I love how many of you suggested that O could be for the BIG O. It most definitely could—but not right this moment…

Holy hell. Codie’s world had just been rocked hard. She didn’t remember Pete being that good a lover when they were kids.

Of course, she probably hadn’t been the greatest, either.

She let out another long, slow breath as her heartbeat slowed and she rested her head on his chest. He smelled really nice. And, yeah, he might have been in good shape back when he’d played football for the Dalton Tigers, but he was hard and tight all over now.

Slade who?

She pressed her lips into his pec and then looked up at him in the dim light of his bedroom. She felt sleepy now. Pete might have been used to working graveyards, but Codie was a day person. It was sometime after two in the morning and, after such a busy, tense night, she was feeling tired. “When do you have to go back on patrol?”

He’d had his left hand tucked under his head while his right arm held her close to him. He slid the left hand out from under his head and held his wrist up so he could look at his watch. After squinting at the dial, he said, “About fifteen minutes.”

She felt herself frown and tried to hide it. Forcing her eyes to open wider—trying to fake wakefulness—she said, “Guess we’d better get up then.”

Pete grinned so that one of his dimples showed. He stroked her hair and said, “Just rest your head a few more minutes. We got time.” Wow. He—no, that. Yes, that. The meticulous attention to her. How many times in the past had she and Slade finished making love, only to have him either zonked out immediately or checking his emails or getting back to perusing some brief? Yeah, she loved that being driven was a huge part of who Slade was, but she was really enjoying being the only thing Pete seemed to care about—if only for a moment.

She dozed off while he stroked her hair, lulling her into a deep, restful sleep, and it wasn’t until she heard him moving around in the bedroom that she stirred—and even then, she struggled to half open her eyes. “Oh, crap. Gimme a minute.”

“No, you just sleep. I can catch the bad guys without you.”

“But—”

“Shh.” He kissed the top of her head and said, “Make yourself at home. I’ll be back later.”

She was out like a light before he closed the front door.

* * *

Codie fell into a deep sleep but managed to awaken a little when she heard Pete making noise as he walked in the front door. She forced her eyes open and squinted at the clock beside the bed. It was almost seven-thirty, so she imagined he was done for the evening.

He’d told her before the ride-along that, aside from the higher ups, many of the cops were on rotation. He’d work graveyards for a while and then he’d be on the day and swing shifts for a while before rotating back to nights. It made it fair for all of them, especially the guys who had families. Once in a while, he said, there were guys who actually wanted those shifts—probably because of the pay differential—but most of them didn’t mind switching things up.

Codie heard Pete start the shower and then she drifted back to sleep, so it seemed like only seconds passed before he was back in bed with her and pulling her close. He kissed her earlobe before whispering, “You didn’t miss much. The most exciting part of the night is usually the beginning of the shift.”

She’d been considering sleeping a little longer and then bailing, but his firm body holding her close—and smelling fresh to boot—made her change her mind. “You’re just saying that so I feel better.”

He chuckled. “Nah. But if you don’t believe me, we can schedule another ride-along next week.”

“Hmm. We might have to do that.”

“I can ask for a longer lunch break too.”

She laughed before falling asleep once more.

NOTE: I imagine this will be a place where I’ll have a chapter break. This is a natural place for a chapter to end, and it stops on a sweet note, a nice place for the reader to set the book down before coming back later. But…that also might not be a good idea. I need to leave the reader wanting more, and while lots of shit happened on patrol the night before—things that the reader might be curious about—that might not be enough to make her/him want to pick up the book later. So I might instead do a scene break to pull them back in and keep them invested before I end the chapter. Yep. I just talked myself into that. 😀 So…on with the story!

“You what?” Codie stood next to her best friend and roommate Matthew while they waited in line to order sub sandwiches for lunch.

Codie raised her eyebrows. Her friend tended to be a little dramatic on occasion. “You heard me.”

“How the hell did that even happen?” Matthew was chiding her but smiling at the same time. She knew her gay bestie all too well. He was protesting too much and wanted all the dirty details—Codie already knew it. They’d been friends for far too long.

“You know. Shit just happens.”

The girl at the counter said, “What’ll it be?”

“Oh.” Codie turned from Matthew. He was just going to have to wait, because there was a huge line behind them. So she began giving her order to the girl while Matthew was soon helped by another person behind the counter. In less than five minutes, they were sitting in a booth, ready to eat potato salad and sandwiches and sipping iced tea.

“So…dish.” Matthew smiled at her, his hands laced in front of him, indicating that he wasn’t even going to touch his food until she began telling him her story. Why he always needed the dirty details was beyond her. She’d heard more stories over the past several years about gay sex than she’d have ever dreamed possible, but Matthew made everything fun. His normally blonde hair was dyed jet black at the moment, but next week it might be apple red. His blue eyes sparkled, even though his movie star chin was set firmly as if he wasn’t planning to budge.

“There’s not much to tell, Matthew. We, uh…we did the deed.”

“Wonder what my boss is gonna think about that.”

What would Slade think indeed?

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UP NEXT:  P is for PETE